Help with Medieval Weapons

This is a discussion on Help with Medieval Weapons within the A Brief History of Cprogramming.com forums, part of the Community Boards category; I need help in building the medieval weapons list for my game. If you have nothing better to do here's ...

The list shows weapon types followed by actual names to be shown on the game.

Names are listed in no particular order, except for the last (capitalized) which is some weapon taken from world folklore or with historical significance which represents a special weapon of that type. I want to pay homage to some cultures in the form of a special weapon. I'm obviously missing some and there is nothing wrong in having two special weapons, instead of one.

There will be no ranged weapons.

Can you help me grow this list vertically or horizontally?

Special Needs:
I'm need to expand that flail list!
I have two japanese references (Bokken and Ono). I just want one.
I need more cultural references (lists with final capitalized weapon)

Special Notes:
Trident is a reference to Greek culture. There was never such a weapon throughout military history. So don't think I'm missing a cultural reference on the spears list.

Flails are neat... here's an idea: include other types of flails apart from the spiked ball weapons with which you are familiar. Wiki mentions that there are types of flails originating from India... what do those look like I wonder.

The dirk was used in one hand with a targe in the other; I believe the idea was to either sweep aside the enemy's weapon with the targe and rip him a new one with the dirk or just break his face/arm with the targe itself.

Yeah. I saw that wiki page. I was hoping to find the name of other types of flail. I know that in medieval times there were at least two more; a three-ball flail and a weird flail similar to a cat-o-nine-tails. I just can't find their names anywhere.

If any of you guys know of any special flail that is part of your history or culture, do let me know please.

But I'm going to add morning star to the flail list. I didn't yet because I was really doubtful I should. The real morning star, as I know it, was in fact the mace. Not the flail. But the flail list is very poor already.

The Sansetsukon is double-handed. I'll however consider the nunchaku for the special weapon, if we can't find anything better before the end

For clubs, you could add the tonfa. It's similar to the modern-day represenation of a policeman's nightstick. For daggers, you could add the balisong, or what on the street is called a "butterfly knife". Another dagger-type weapon you could use is the main-gauche.

I don't believe tridents were ever used in any country's military. They're used primarily for fishing.

If you need a more Asian flair, you could include the old standards of katana and wakizashi. Then, you've got the good old sai. There's also the sword of the "renegades", to, used by certain ninja clans.

Want to get a bit gruesome? Try the cestus or the drusus. For a more Egyptian flair, nothing beats the khopesh.

The morningstar really doesn't belong with the flails. Flails in and of themselves are rather unique weapons. You might consider the scourge to be closer to the flail than the morningstar. Keep in mind though that there are two major kinds of flails, one intended for hand-to-hand combat and one intended for use on horseback. This same difference also exists for maces. The principal defining factor of a flail is its implementation...some have long chains, some only a couple of segments, some have spikes, some don't, some have more than one offensive striker, etc.

I could give you an exhaustive list of polearms if you'd like...I know of over 15 of them. "Polearm" itself isn't a weapon but a classification of a specific type of two-handed staff-based weapon.

I don't have any links for any of these weapons, as what I know is material from various history books, but I'm sure wikipedia would have plenty of information.

Here's what I grabbed from you:
- The Khopesh, no doubt! And made as a special weapon.
- Moved the morningstar to the clubs category. I agree. I was not happy having it there.
- Removed polearm from the names list.

I'm avoiding repetitive references to a particular culture. So, the Ono, for its absolute rarity, makes the only japanese reference.

I added a few ones meanwhile that I have been researching. the tomahawk as a special weapon, the lochaber also as a special weapon (english were terrified of it), changed the lucern to a special weapon too (wasn't aware of its origins before I read about it) and added the Hofi hammer as a special homage to one of the last power hammering blacksmiths in the world. And also remembered of the scary flamberge.

That wikipedia category has a lot of good stuff in it. It misses quite a few polearms though...of particular note is the fauchard, derived from the agricultural sickle, and its many modifications, such as the fauchard-fork and the hook-fauchard. Also, several types of polearms tended to overlap in terms of "features"...the glaive and the guisarme often overlapped with other polearms, creating weapons such as the glaive-guisarme, the guisarme-voulge, and the bill-guisarme. For reference, the voulge is also known as the Lochaber axe, which I noticed you have in your list already. Need another axe? There's always the bardiche, otherwise called the berdysh, depending on where it was spoken about. Of course, there's always the good old standby, the awl pike or Moorish pike, which is probably the longest infantry spear in history. The bec de corbin could be built with either a hammer or an axe head, depending on the application. I find it strange that the list on wikipedia did not include the partisan, one of the most famous polearms in history, along with the ranseur, which is something of the partisan's redheaded stepchild.

Oh, I should mention one major factoid about polearms though...unless you're making a medeival war game, polearms aren't really weapons to be used by individuals. They are weapons to be used in groups, either as a polearm wall (such as a pike wall) or a coordinated pair (sword & shield front unit with polearm unit attacking over front unit's shoulder was a common technique, the halberd was perfect for this). Also, those who wielded polearms also tended to carry a sidearm, usually a short sword of some kind.

Btw...the "cat-o-nine-tails" is the scourge, which I mentioned earlier.

I recommended the cestus as a punching weapon. Claws aren't really punching weapons per se unless they're fitted over the proximal phalanges or even the metacarpal-phalangeal joints, claw-based weapons are often either supplemental to other weapons or, in the case of standalone, strapped across the metacarpals with the claws extending from the top of the hand and are used primarily for slashing. Katar is a good one though, as it would technically be a "punching" weapon. Quite a few MMORPGs utilize katars.